Munichi language
| Munichi | |
|---|---|
| Muniche, Balsapuertiño | |
| Native to | Peru |
| Region | Loreto |
| Extinct | late 1990s, with the death of Victoria Huancho Icahuate 1-2 semispeakers (2023)[1] |
| Dialects | see below |
| Latin[2] | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | myr |
| Glottolog | muni1258 |
| ELP | Munichi |
 Location of Munichi | |
Munichi is an extinct language which was spoken in the village of Munichis, about 10 miles (16 km) west of Yurimaguas, Loreto Region, Peru. In 1988, there were two mother-tongue speakers, but they had not met since the 1970s. The last known fluent speaker, Victoria Huancho Icahuate, died in the late 1990s, but the language was already moribund by the 1930s. As of 2009, there were several semi-speakers who retained significant lexical, and partial grammatical, knowledge of the language (Michael et al. 2013).[1]
It is also called Balsapuertiño, named after the village of Balsapuerto in the department of Loreto, Peru.[3]
Word order in Munichi is VSO.[4][5]
Classification
[edit]The language is considered an isolate (Michael et al. 2013), but the pronominal suffixes bear a close resemblance to those reconstructed for proto-Arawakan (Gibson 1996:18-19), and some lexical items are similar to ones in Arawakan languages (Jolkesky 2016:310–317).[6] Although Jolkesky (id.) argues that the language belongs to a putative Macro-Arawakan stock, evidence has yet to be provided for placing it either in a sister branch to the Arawakan language family or in a branch within this language family. There is substantial borrowing from the local variety of Quechua, and to a lesser extent from Spanish and Cahuapanan languages (Michael et al. 2013).
Varieties
[edit]Unattested "Munichi stock" varieties listed by Loukotka (1968):[3]
- Tabaloso - spoken in Loreto department in the village of Tabalosa on the Mayo River
- Chasutino (Cascoasoa) - once spoken in the village of Chasuta on the Huallaga River; now only Quechua is spoken.
- Huatama (Otanavi) - once spoken in the villages of San José de Sisa and Otanahui in the same region; now only Quechua is spoken. Is a variety of Muniche proper.[1]
- Lama (Lamista) - extinct language once spoken on the Moyobamba River. The last survivors now speak only Quechua or Spanish.
- Suchichi (Suriche) - extinct language once spoken in the village of Tarapoto in the same region
- Zapaso - extinct language from the same region, once spoken on the Saposoa River
- Nindaso - once spoken on the Huallaga River north of the Zapaso tribe
- Nomona - once spoken on the left bank of the Saposoa River
Varieties listed by Mason (1950):[7]
- Muniche
- Muchimo
- Otanabe
- Churitana
Currently, there are two distinguished varieties of Muniche. One of the dialects merges certain phonemes that the other dialect does not.[1]
Language contact
[edit]Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Cholon-Hibito, Kechua, and Mochika language families due to contact.[8]
A number of Spanish loanwords may have passed through Shiwilu, a Cahuapanan language.[1]
Phonology
[edit]Vowels
[edit]Munichi has six vowels: /a, e, i, ɨ, o, u/.[9] Michael et al. (2023) reduce this to five vowels, these being /i, ɨ, u, e, a/.[1]
Consonants
[edit]| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palato-alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | c | k | ʔ | ||
| voiced | d | g | ||||||
| Affricate | t͡s | t͡ʃ2 | ʈʂ | |||||
| Fricative | s | ʃ | ʂ | ç | h3 | |||
| Nasal | m | n1 | ɲ1 | |||||
| Approximant | l | j | (w) | |||||
| Flap | ɾ | |||||||
- The two nasals listed here are treated as one placeless nasal by Michael et al. (2023). It assimilates to the position of the following stop or affricate; otherwise it is realized as [n] in onsets and [ŋ] in codas.[1] This may be seen in the following examples:
iN-pa
[iʔmpa]
peach.palm-CLF:mash
'peach palm mash'
iN-sa
[iʔŋsa]
peach.palm-CLF:fluid
'peach palm drink'
Note that [m] does not exhibit this assimilation.
hamte-ɲe
[hamteɲe]
child-1SG
'my child'
- [t͡ʃ] and [ʈʂ] lose their contrast before /i/, /e/, and /ɨ/, with only [t͡ʃ] occurring before /i/ and /e/, and [ʈʂ] before /ɨ/.
- /h/ becomes [x] immediately before other consonants.
Phonotactics
[edit]The maximal syllable in Muniche is C1C2VC3, with the following restrictions for the consonants. Syllables without onset are permitted.[1]
- C1 must be voiceless.
- C2 cannot be a fricative.
- C1 and C2 cannot be a glottal stop.
- C1 and C2 cannot be both fricatives or both affricates.
Many consonant clusters in Muniche are suspected to arise from vowel reduction.
Verbs
[edit]Desiderative
[edit]Muniche has a desiderative suffix -çu ~ -cu, used to express that the subject of a verb to which the suffix is attached desires the outcome of the clause.[1]
ʂa-çu-me=ɲe
eat-DESI-PFV=1SG
iʔteʔsira
soup
maçu
deer
'I want to eat deer soup'
çawɨ-çu=nɨ
sit-DESI-1SG
raneʔe
there
'I want to sit there'
The subject must be the one desiring the realization of an action and the realizer of the action. To express the desire of someone else realizing an action, the complement-taking verb açta must be used.
açta-me=ɲe
want-PFV-1SG
sica-t=pɨ=nɨ
sell-IRR=2SG=1SG
puʔu
meat
ʂnɨrɨ
'I want you to sell me paca meat'
Vocabulary
[edit]Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Munichi.[3]
gloss Munichi one wuítsa two utspa three uchuma head óke ear épue tooth dé fire chúshe stone sögte sun xowá moon spáltsi maize sáa dog xíno boat niasúta
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i Michael, Lev; Farmer, Stephanie; Finley, Gregory; Acosta, Karina Sullón; Beier, Christine; Icahuate, Alexandra Chanchari; Baneo, Donalia Icahuate; Saita, Melchor Sinti (2023-01-16), Epps, Patience; Michael, Lev (eds.), "18 Muniche", Language Isolates II: Kanoé to Yurakaré, De Gruyter, pp. 851–892, doi:10.1515/9783110432732-005, ISBN 978-3-11-043273-2, retrieved 2025-09-17
- ^ Una Breve Descripción del Idioma Muniche (PDF). 2009.
- ^ a b c Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
- ^ Gibson, Michael Luke. 1996. El Munichi: Un idioma que se extingue. (Serie Lingüística Peruana, 42.) Pucallpa: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. 103pp.
- ^ Michael Gibson. 1988. The Muniche Language: with partial reference to verb morphology. (MA thesis, University of Reading).
- ^ Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho De Valhery. 2016. Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas Archived 2022-01-22 at the Wayback Machine. Doutorado em Linguística. Universidade de Brasília.
- ^ Mason, John Alden (1950). "The languages of South America". In Steward, Julian (ed.). Handbook of South American Indians. Vol. 6. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office: Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143. pp. 157–317.
- ^ Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.
- ^ "SAPhon – South American Phonological Inventories". linguistics.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2018-08-12.
Bibliography
[edit]
- Gibson, Michael L. 1996. El Munichi: Un idioma que se extingue. Serie Lingüística Peruana, 42. Pucallpa: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. Available here.
- Jolkesky, M. 2016. Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas. Brasilia: UnB. PhD Dissertation. Available here.
- Michael, Lev, Stephanie Farmer, Greg Finley, Christine Beier, and Karina Sullón Acosta. 2013. A sketch of Muniche segmental and prosodic phonology. International Journal of American Linguistics 79(3):307-347.
- Michael, L.; Beier, Ch.; Acosta, K. S.; Farmer, S.; Finley, G.; Roswell, M. (2009). Dekyunáwa: Un diccionario de nuestro idioma muniche. (Manuscript).